Iran-Contra Affair, 1980s U.S. political scandal in which the National Security Council(NSC) became involved in secret weapons transactions and other activities that either were prohibited by the U.S. Congress or violated the stated public policy of the government.
The background to the scandal lay in President Ronald Reagan’s pre-occupation with the spread of communism, in particular in the United States’ own backyard of Central America. In 1979, the Sandinista liberation movement in Nicaragua had finally overthrown the dictatorship of President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, whereupon Reagan became increasingly convinced that the presence of an actively left-wing regime in that country would spark revolution throughout the region and threaten the security of the United States. To combat this possibility, his administration ploughed massive amounts of military aid into a number of governments in Central America that were beset by civil war and guerrilla fighting.
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President Ronald Reagan receiving the Tower Commission Report, following the Iran-Contra Affair, …National Archives, Washington, D.C
In the case of Nicaragua, the focus was on destabilizing the government and engineering the overthrow of the Marxist-oriented Sandinista regime. Military aid was channeled to militia groups—the “Contras”—fighting to achieve this end. The American public, however, grew increasingly opposed to such funding, and when Congress passed a law banning it, the White House resorted to covert means to continue its support.
There was a Middle East component of this policy as well. In early 1985 the head of the NSC, Robert C. McFarlane, undertook the sale of antitank and antiaircraft missiles to Iran in the mistaken belief that such a sale would secure the release of a number of American citizens who were being held captive in Lebanon by Shīʿite terrorist groups loyal to Iran. This and several subsequent weapon sales to Iran in 1986 directly contradicted the U.S. government’s publicly stated policy of refusing either to bargain with terrorists or to aid Iran in its war with Iraq, a policy based on the belief that Iran was a sponsor of international terrorism. A portion of the $48 million that Iran paid for the arms was diverted by the NSC and given to the Contras battling the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The monetary transfers were undertaken by NSC staff member Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North with the approval of McFarlane’s successor as head of the NSC, Rear Admiral John M. Poindexter. North and his associates also raised private funds for the Contras. These activities violated the Boland Amendment, a law passed by Congress in 1984 that banned direct or indirect U.S. military aid to the Contras.
The NSC’s illegal activities came to light in November 1986 and aroused an immediate public uproar. The Reagan administration was forced to admit that it had covertly continued to fund the Contras by means of arms sales to Iran which were themselves illegal and in breach of a trade embargo against that country. North claimed that both Reagan and his Vice President, George Bush, had known about the covert operations, though both denied any knowledge of the details and no evidence was ever brought linking them to any wrongdoing.
Poindexter and North lost their jobs and were prosecuted, President Ronald Reagan’s public image was tarnished—the Tower Commission established to investigate the affair accused Reagan of “a lax managerial style and aloofness from policy detail”—and the United States suffered a serious though temporary loss of credibility as an opponent of terrorism. Moreover, the affair raised serious questions about the power of the executive branch of government and the extent and effectiveness of Congress’s oversight of foreign affairs, an issue poignantly highlighted by the Tower Commission when it cited the famous Latin query from the Roman poet Juvenal: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” (“Who will watch the watchmen?”)
OMAHUNG WORLD 